Category Archives: Travel

Don’t Use A Debit Card As A Credit Card

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If you have a debit (aka “ATM”) card associated with your checking account chances are that it sports a MasterCard or Visa logo. You may use it to pay for purchases as if it is a credit card when the merchant does not use a debit keypad for entering your PIN to authenticate the transaction. You may also use it for most other transactions that require a credit card online.

This is very convenient, especially if you only want to spend real money in your checking account rather than accumulate debt on a credit card. But there’s a very good reason NOT to use your debit card as a credit card.

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How To Fly With Your Musical Instrument

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Musicians travelling by air have long struggled with figuring out how/if/when they will be allowed to bring their instrument in the cabin, rather than expose it to the not-so-tender mercies of baggage compartments and handlers. The US government recently passed this law creating uniform rules for allowing instruments into the passenger cabin:

Musical-Instruments-on-Aircraft-US-Law-2012

BUT… as of this date it is not actually in effect, because it set a deadline

Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall issue final regulations to carry out subsection (a).

In the meantime, here are some ideas to help make your instrument-toting travel smoother:

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Mini Friday Fave and TSA Warning

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I know I said no more Friday Faves until after NaNoWriMo – but I exceeded my first day’s word quota (you can follow my word count via the widget in the right column on my blog’s front page), so I’m taking a moment to share both a new Kickstarter project for Boston friends AND their warning about flying with data!

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Seeing a Landmark If You Are Not There

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Most people know that Google Maps includes Street View – they have vehicles mounted with cameras that cruise the streets taking photos every few feet. That’s a LOT of territory to cover, so at this point a portion of these images are likely to be several years old. But unless there has been major reconstruction in an area these photos are still a good way to actually see what a location looks like before you drive there.

Last week I used this feature to find something a friend mentioned in her blog, but regretted that at the time she had not taken a photo to post. Continue reading →